


His Summer in Winter

by chewysugar



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Bickering, Christmas, F/M, Happy Ending, Mutant Rights, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 03:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12903276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: A holiday date with Jean brings up Scott's old issues.





	His Summer in Winter

The depth of Jean’s kindness never failed to both astonish and profoundly move Scott. That she would stop and listen to any complaint or fear of not only his but anybody else’s was one of the innumerable reasons that Scott loved her more than anything. But there were times, such as now, that Jean’s willingness to open that good heart of hers made nothing short of a monkey out of her.  
  
Scott stood back on the frosty sidewalk, watching through ruby-tinted glasses as Jean conversed with the kindly elderly woman in front of the plastic red bucket. He wanted to shake his head—wanted to roll his eyes, but he knew that Jean would probably hear the derision. So he contented himself with being the observer, hands tucked into his pockets to stave off the chill of the December day. In his head, he counted off his multiplication tables, needing something to act as a buffer in the event that Jean heard what he thought or felt. It wasn’t that he thought her foolish for being charitable—it was that he didn’t much care for the Salvation Army, sleigh bells, or Christmas altogether. Being a man of nineteen who’d been with Jean since they were both fifteen, Scott had learned how to keep what he thought under wraps lest he find himself with a Jean Grey shaped hand-print across his face.  
  
The little woman shook Jean’s hand enthusiastically, thanking her for a generous gift. Scott’s derision lessened somewhat when Jean turned back—how could anyone, after all, hold this act of compassion against her when it made her whole beautiful face glow and her eyes sparkle.  
  
“I thought she was going to shake my wrist off,” Jean laughed. She linked her arm through Scott’s; and Scott felt that usual shot of warmth chase away the ice cold clouds of winter that always pressed in over his heart.  
  
“A hundred bucks in cold hard cash will do that to a body.”  
  
“Oh, don’t sound so maudlin, sweetie. I wasn’t going to use that for anything. You’re the one paying for dinner and the hotel room tonight.” Jean shot Scott a sly grin; a brief image played in Scott’s head of a bed and red hair and skin and lips.  
  
He winced, but Jean only laughed and pressed closer to him. “Don’t feel bad, big boy. It’s not like I wasn’t thinking the same thing. And you can stop reciting Pi to the last decimal; I’m not going to snoop.”  
  
Scott relaxed. “Sorry, baby. I’m just not in the mindset to risk you even hearing a peep.”  
  
“But Scott, it’s Christmas.” Jean gestured at the street around them—the oldest part of Westchester Village had been decked to the nines; white lights were roped around the old fashioned street lights; Christmas wreaths hung from shop doors; street vendors sold hot cocoa and cider to the herd of shoppers making their way through the high street. There was snow everywhere, lights, decorations, sleigh bells in the distance and a partridge in a pear tree. And to Scott, it was all seen through a shade of red.  
  
Jean leaned her head on his shoulder.  
  
Damn.  
  
He’d broadcast how he’d felt after all.  
  
“I’m sorry, honey,” Jean said. “I guess it’s not much to look at...”  
  
“It is.” Scott didn’t want her upset, not when she was so happy today. “I just never really had much of it when I was a kid.”  
  
“But you can have it now.”  
  
Scott said nothing. He didn’t know if he could. Life had thrown a bucket of bullets his way, what with the world being in such a precarious situation these days; if it wasn’t the futility of the fight against humans for mutant rights, it was the fight against every other mutant who wanted to squish humanity into submission. What good was there in wishing tidings of comfort and joy when it was all just a fallacy?  
  
Jean huffed a sigh, her breath spiraling into a misty in front of her.  
  
“Crap,” Scott muttered. “Broadcasting again?”  
  
“On a loudspeaker. Come on. Maybe some cocoa will take your mind off things.” Jean all but dragged him by the arm to the nearest stand—Scott let her, smiling a little at her enthusiasm. But it was just a cup of cocoa—sweet and warming, yes, but there was no nostalgia in its depths for Scott. He nursed the cup as he and Jean walked arm in arm along the street, his thoughts once again clouded.  
  
“You don’t think there’s something wrong with me, do you?” He hated asking—he’d asked it enough whenever his doubts and fears proved too overwhelming with their bites for him to conquer alone. But it still scared him nonetheless, the possibility that he was stunted in some way.  
  
Jean slipped from his arm, spun around and put her arms around his neck. She smiled, and kissed him, warm lips that tasted of cocoa and mini marshmallows sending heat through Scott’s body.  
  
“If there is,” Jean said when they broke apart, “then it’s alright by me.”  
  
“It’s just...everyone else—“ Scott gestured at the street around them—at the eager shoppers and the laughing children. “I want to have that, right? There’s a lot of things I want to have, but it just—  
  
Jean pressed a finger to his lips. “It feels,” she said softly. “That’s it isn’t it? It feels.”  
  
“Well...yes, actually.”  
  
Jean sighed again, then looked around the street, as if the solution to all of Scott’s damage could be found in the display of nutcrackers looking out from the nearest shop. Her eyes shifted somewhere down the block, and a slow smile spread across her lips.  
  
Again, she took Scott by the arm; this time, though, she led him back the way they’d come, towards the stone church near the town square.  
  
“Jean...come on, this isn’t necessary.”  
  
“Neither is driving yourself crazy,” Jean said. “Maybe a little look at the other side will snap you out of it.”  
  
Scott wanted to say that he didn’t need to be snapped out of anything. But one of the resolutions he’d made that January had been to lie less. So he let Jean drag him towards the church they’d left only moments before...at least until he saw what she was driving at.  
  
“No.” Scott tried to slip from Jean’s grasp, but she was very strong when she was determined. “Jean, I’m not doing this.”  
  
“Come on, you don’t even have to give that much. Just a dollar.”  
  
“Jean, I don’t want to do this.”  
  
They were a good ten feet away from the little old lady in front of her donation box. Scott felt heat rise in his face, the angry kind. Jean wasn’t listening to him; he felt himself fall back to a childhood spent told what to do; to days and nights spent told he wasn’t good enough; to hours nursing cuts and bruises and black eyes and other worse scars of abuse from the man who’d twisted his mind into this scrap heap of molten metal.  
  
“No!”  
  
Scott wrenched his arm out of Jean’s grasp, far too hard than he’d meant to. Jean let out a gasp, more out of shock than pain, and dropped Scott’s hand. She stared at him, lips parted—Scott could scarcely believe what he’d just done, yet he couldn’t deny the relief at not having to approach the woman now staring at both he and Jean in concern.  
  
He wanted to gouge his own eyes out at his thoughtlessness; but because Jean was so damn good to him, her disbelief melted into understanding.  
  
“Scott...I’m sorry. I just wanted—  
  
“I know.” Scott exhaled, and looked at his boots. “I just don’t believe in it.”  
  
Jean frowned. “In giving? You can’t tell me that; not with how much you want to help those in need.”  
  
“I don’t believe in giving to _them_.” Scott nodded as inconspicuously as he could at the donation box.  
  
Jean’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a charity, Scott...”  
  
“To people they deem worthy.” Bobby had told Scott all about the Sally Ann’s preference for all things white, heterosexual, Christian and, above all else, human. Scott had even heard of outfits under the charity’s umbrella openly organizing fundraisers for the protection of humans against mutantkind.  
  
Something broke in Jean’s face momentarily—a sort of shattering of some kind of belief; Scott was left with the impression that he may well have taken everything she believed in, put it in a box and then turned it upside down in front of her.  
  
Then the fire came into her eyes—that strength that always took his breath away, although in this case it made him feel about as tall as a dust mite. She turned on her heel and marched towards the church, right past the hurt looking little old lady.  
  
“Jean—wait! Where are you going?”  
  
“I have to pee,” Jean said, walking briskly and not looking at Scott.  
  
“In there?”  
  
“They have bathrooms.”  
  
“You want me to wait?”  
  
“You do whatever you want to, Slim.”  
  
Scott knew well enough that he understood exactly where he stood now; Jean of all people addressing him as Slim was indication that he was bound for the doghouse. And like a dog, he followed her into the entrance hall of the church, tail tucked between his legs, teeth grinding together furiously.  
  
The church smelled of incense, candle wax and dust. Scott heard the gentle sound of some kind of live band playing from near the pulpit. He was so furious—mostly at himself for having made a proper dog’s breakfast of what had been a pleasant day out with Jean—that he half-entertained the notion of blasting the big Christmas tree in the front foyer to ashes.  
  
Well, not blast it—maybe just singe it a little.  
  
Jean didn’t spare him even a parting glance as she adjourned to the bathroom. Scott found himself all but alone in the foyer, doing his utmost not to let the sinking sensation of being unwelcome in the house of the Lord weigh at his sense of self too much. Yet despite his misgivings, there was only the continued music from the main hall of worship and the unpleasant feeling of being the outsider—no torches, no pitchforks, or even insults.  
  
He knew Jean could be a while in calming herself down; and when he was the cause, she’d likely stay in the bathroom for a solid ten minutes. It was for the best—master of her gifts as she was, Jean was still slave to emotion. If she didn’t get herself under control, then having his mind intruded upon would be the least of Scott’s worries, to say nothing of the people of Westchester Village.  
  
Waiting in the wings of the church was all but unbearable; Scott kept anticipating the inevitable intrusion—someone would ask him what business he had here, why he felt the need to wear such outlandish glasses inside and eventually he’d be back out in the cold, unfeeling chaos of the world.  
  
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to believe in humankind; he did. He wanted it so much that he felt he could choke on it. But as Hank McCoy was so fond of saying, a person could only take so much on blind faith before they started to wonder what there really was to anything whatsoever. Scott had personally seen and been beaten down one time too many by hatred and prejudice; he felt it in his heart day after grueling day—the separation from the fearful humans; the creeping sense of futility. No matter how much he tried to believe in Professor Xavier’s hopes that humans and mutants could live in harmony, Scott was losing faith day by day.  
  
Still, as he looked out the stained glass window to the churchyard beyond, he wondered if that mean he had to take it out on Jean’s sense of charity and goodwill?  
  
What harm was there in having Jean believe that she’d done the right thing in giving to a charity that, while it was known for its backhandedness, still looked out for the less fortunate?  
  
_You’re an asshole_ , Summers, he thought bitterly. _Just a stupid asshole who isn’t good enough for someone like Jean._  
  
Really it was a Christmas miracle that she was with him after all this time. Most teenaged girls would have seen baggage like Scott’s and...possibly run towards it with stars in their eyes, if the popularity of Twilight were any indication. But they’d have backed off once they got a taste of reality.  
  
Not Jean Grey.  
  
Never Jean, with her belief that anyone—human or mutant—could be saved.  
  
A gentle melody floated from within the church proper to where Scott stood; it was a soft, almost lullaby of harp and guitar strings. A moment later, the most melodic, hauntingly beautiful voice Scott has ever heard began to sing an old familiar carol:  
  
_“Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes...”_  
  
Scott found himself moving on stunned feet away from the foyer and into the body of the church, with its many pews and its high ceiling. The music came from a spot behind the pulpit, where the choir usually stood on Sundays. A woman with short dark hair stood there, tall and lithe, in a simple blue dress. Behind her, a guitarist and harpist played gently as she sang the carol in its original Latin, her voice crystal and fluid as a mountain stream.  
  
To Scott, who saw everything through the oft-aggravating shade of red, music was often an elixir for a mind and spirit consistently on the cusp of utter meltdown. He could close his eyes and get lost in everything from modern pop to Inuit throat singing. The more sincere the singer—the more Scott truly felt the lyrics and music—the calmer and more moved he became—the more he could actually let himself feel.  
  
He continued his slow approach down the aisle, that familiar feeling of actually feeling something blossoming through him. Jean had been right—but then again, when wasn’t she? Scott Summers was wary of feeling when he couldn’t control it; and as he continued to let the singer’s sincere carol sink into his very being, he let himself slip away from that careful control.  
  
_“...venite adoremus, venite adoremus, venite adoremus dominum...”_  
  
He hurt so much; felt so deeply at times that it killed him, but that wasn’t the problem—the problem was his finding the need to hide it. The problem was that he was just a nineteen year old kid made to wear the mantle of leader when all he wanted was days like this with the girl he loved; the problem was that he’d been mishandled and abused when he’d already lost so much; the problem was that he had the same capacity for hatred within him that people like Erik Lensherr and Robert Kelley lived and breathed—it had been nurtured and shaped, and all he wanted was to accept and forgive...to be like Jean; and to be worthy of her.  
  
He paused ten feet from the altar, the song coasting through him like warming fire. The singer seemed oblivious to his presence—she was singing to something, of something, something that she believed in with all her might and merit.  
  
Scott looked to the side of the altar; there, set against the wall, was a life-sized crèche. Thought not raised religious—his family had been about science, and the hell he’d known afterwards had worshipped money and gain—Scott was still familiar with the Nativity story. He knew the Three Wise Men, and the shepherds; he knew Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the little fellow with the drum, and all the animals. He’d never given them much thought before—he wasn’t even sure he’d give them any after today.  
  
But as the music continued to fill him, as the sincerity in the woman’s song gently opened a well-guarded door in his mind, Scott felt himself drawn towards the little scene. He kept his eyes in the baby in the manger, his face lined in a frown.  
  
What did it matter what he wasn’t getting out of this of all holidays? What did it matter what anybody got out of it? It had less to do with him than it did anyone else. They believed in this—when it came down to it, even certain mutants still believed in it. And whether it had actually ever happened—whether a human with as much goodness as there was in the eyes of the effigy of the little baby had ever truly existed let alone been the product of immaculate conception was neither here nor there.  
  
That people, in this weary, jaded, cynical world could still believe in something like that and sing such beautiful songs and make a holiday of it? That was a true miracle in and of itself, and who was Scott to treat them so callously when they at least tried?  
  
_Someone who’s in a lot of pain but won’t admit it_ , said a voice in his head.  
  
Scott looked around.  
  
There she was, walking towards him near the Nativity scene, her eyes brimming with that incredible warmth and understanding. She’d spoken in his head, but Scott didn’t remotely care about the intrusion.  
  
“Broadcasting?” He said, surprised at the hoarseness of his own voice.  
  
Jean nodded, and reached her arms to him. It was only when she brushed a thumb over his cheek that Scott even realized what it was that he’d done.  
  
“Ah geez.” He looked away, jammed his eyelids shut and took his glasses off, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. It was that damn song, still resounding like a shot of sunlight through the little church.  
  
No.  
  
Not just the song, or his own little epiphany.  
  
It was her, Jean. She’d shown him this without even meaning to—brought him to this place because she at least had the heart to believe in both mutants and humans and everything in between. Even with all the cards stacked against holding such a notion, Jean still refused to let it go—refused to give up on him.  
  
Scott put his glasses on, and then pulled Jean into his arms. His own Christmas miracle—his own piece of Heaven come to Earth.  
  
“Thank you,” he whispered into her hair.  
  
“Of course, baby. Any time.”  
  
“Hey Jean?”  
  
“Mhm?”  
  
“You wouldn’t happen to have a five I could borrow to give that old dear outside, would you?”  
  
Jean looked into Scott’s eyes, her expression peevish. “Alright, Mister Cheapo. But you’re footing a full continental breakfast when we get to the hotel.”  
  
Scott laughed.  
  
“That’s less than I deserve to do, I think.”  
  
“And don’t you forget it.”  
  
He wouldn’t. How could he, when he was doing it for her?

**Author's Note:**

> Scott and Jean could have been incredible characters if the writers of almost every X-Men title hadn't all been going gaga over SnktBub. I love Logan, but he's so overused. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
